Do You Take This Maverick?

Claire had struggled to keep her sobs from surfacing. “No, he didn’t lay a hand on me, Grandmother.”

“Then what happened? Why are you divorcing him?” Melba had demanded in her no-nonsense tone.

But Claire just shook her head, waving away the question. She had no intentions of reiterating the incident. She knew she’d break down before she even got to the middle of the story.

“It doesn’t matter what happened. We’re getting divorced. It’s over,” she told her grandparents with finality, her voice catching at the end.

For a moment she thought she was going to burst into sobs, but she managed to get herself under control at the last second.

Melba shot her husband a knowing look that all but shouted, “I told you so.”

“I knew you were too young to get married.” Although it was a declaration, there had been no triumph in Melba’s voice. “You haven’t had a chance to live yet. After graduating college, you’re supposed to sample life a little. Travel. Do things, not tie yourself down with a marriage and a baby.” She looked at her granddaughter knowingly. “Neither one of you was ready for that, especially not you.”

“Melba,” Gene warned, giving her a look that told her to keep her piece.

As headstrong and independent as ever, Melba was not about to listen. Hands on her hips, the diminutive woman turned on her husband. “Don’t Melba me, Gene. She wasn’t ready.”

The steely older woman looked at her granddaughter, then, after a moment, she enfolded the girl in her arms. Melba’s intentions were obviously good, but it still made for a rather awkward moment.

“Oh, Claire,” Melba said with a sigh, “you wound up setting yourself up. Marriage isn’t some magical, happily-ever-after state. At best it’s an ongoing work in progress.”

“I’ll say,” Gene chuckled, his chest moving up and down with the deep rumble. It managed to entertain Bekka, who in turn gurgled her approval. “The first hundred years are the hardest, honey,” he told his granddaughter with a twinkle in his eye. “After that it gets easier. But you have to invest the time.”

Claire had sniffled then, doing her best not to cry. Doing her best to face the rest of her life stoically. “That’s all water under the bridge, Grandpa. I threw Levi out.” That had been two days ago. “It’s over.”

Melba’s dark eyebrows drew together in a puzzled single line. “If you threw Levi out, what are you doing here?”

Claire shook her head. “Well, it’s his apartment. I can’t stay there now. Everywhere I look—the kitchen, the closet, our bedroom—I can see him. It’s just too hard for me to take.”

Gene had glanced over toward his wife as if he knew that Melba was obviously going to say something that would echo the voice of reason—and be utterly practical. But Claire didn’t need practical. What she needed—rather desperately, if the look in her eyes was any gauge—was understanding.

In order to forestall his wife and whatever it was that she was going to say, Gene quickly spoke up, trying to stop whatever words were going to come out of Melba’s mouth.

“Claire-bear,” he said, addressing his granddaughter by the nickname he’d given her when she was about a month old, “You can stay here as long as you like. As it so happens, we’ve got a couple of vacancies, and it’s been a long time since your grandmother and I have heard the sound of little running feet.”

“Bekka is only eight months old, Grandpa. She doesn’t even walk yet, much less run,” Claire reminded her grandfather.

What her daughter did do, almost all night long, was fuss and cry. Another reason that she felt so worn out, hemmed in and trapped, Claire thought, struggling not to be resentful.

Her hostile feelings were redirected toward her husband. If he had been there to share in the responsibility, if he would have taken his turn walking the floor with the baby, then she wouldn’t have felt as exhausted and out of sorts as she did.

“But she will,” Gene was telling her. “She will and when she does, we’ll be there to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself, won’t we, Mel?” he said, turning toward his wife.

“Sure. And the boarding house will just run itself,” Melba commented sarcastically.

Gene shook his head as he looked at his granddaughter. “Don’t mind your grandmother. She always sees the downside of things. Me, I see the upside.” He winked at Claire. “That’s why our marriage works.”

“That’s why your grandfather is a cockeyed optimist,” Melba corrected.

For the sake of peace, Gene ignored his wife’s comment. Instead, he said to Claire, “Like I said, you can stay here as long as you like.” He turned toward the staircase, still holding Bekka in his arms. “Come on, we’ll get you and the princess here settled in.”

“I’ll pay for the room, Grandmother,” Claire had said, looking over her shoulder at Melba.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Gene informed her. “Family doesn’t pay.”

“But family pitches in,” Melba had interjected. “We’ll find something for you to do here at the boarding house, Claire.”

“Anything,” Claire had offered.

“How’s your cooking?” Melba asked her. “I need someone to pick up the slack when Gina is busy,” she elaborated, referring to the cook she’d recently hired. “I’m giving having someone else handling the cooking a try. I’ve already got a lot to keep me busy.”

“Anything but that,” Claire had amended almost sheepishly. “I’m afraid I still haven’t gotten the hang of cooking.” And then she brightened. “But I can make beds,” she volunteered.

“This is a boarding house, Claire, not a bed-and-breakfast. People here make their own beds,” Melba informed her matter-of-factly.

“Don’t worry,” Gene had said, putting one arm around his granddaughter’s shoulders as he held his great-granddaughter against him with the other, “We’ll come up with something for you to do until you find your way.”

Claire had sighed then, leaning into him as she had done on so many occasions when she had been a little girl, growing up.

“I hope so, Grandpa,” Claire said, doing her best to sound cheerful. “I really hope so.”

Chapter Two

Gene Strickland tried to ignore it, but even after all these years of marriage, he hadn’t found a way to go about things as if everything was all right when it wasn’t. His wife’s scowl—which was aimed directly at him and had been an ongoing thing now for the past two weeks—seemed to go clean down to the bone. There was no use pretending that it didn’t.

So he didn’t even try.

Pushing aside the monthly inventory he was in the process of updating in connection with the boarding house’s current supplies, Gene asked, “Okay, woman. Out with it. What’s got your panties all in a twist like this?”

Brooding dark brown eyes looked at him accusingly from across the large scarred oak desk they both shared in the corner room that served as an office.

“As if you don’t know,” she muttered under her breath, but clearly enough for Gene to hear.

“No, I don’t know,” he’d informed her. “I’d like to think that I’d have the good sense not to ask if I knew. I’ve been with you long enough to know that lots of things set you off and right now, I don’t want to risk bringing up any of them.”

Melba pursed her lips as her eyes held his. “You’re coddling her.”

“Her?” Gene echoed innocently.

“Yes, her. Claire,” she finally said. “Don’t play dumb with me,” Melba warned. “You know damn well that I’m talking about our granddaughter, Gene.”

Unable to properly focus on the inventory while his wife was talking, Gene put down his pen and shook his head. This whole thing with Claire had hit Melba hard, he thought. He had a feeling that his wife blamed herself for not speaking up more to change Claire’s mind about marrying so young. Or, at the very least, getting Claire to wait another year or so before leaping into marriage. But they all knew that the young never listened to the old, he thought, resigned.

Melba needed to change her opinion about Claire’s marriage as well.

Especially since he was going to have to let her in on a secret he would have rather not had to divulge. However, if Melba found out about this on her own—and she had a knack for doing that—then Claire and Levi’s marriage might not be the only one in trouble.

“Claire’s going through a really rough patch right now, Mel.”

“I know that,” the old woman snapped. “And she needs a backbone to get through it, not to be treated as if she was made out of spun glass and could break at any second. She needs to toughen up.” The very thought of a fragile granddaughter exasperated Melba beyond words. “Her parents were just too soft on her. If it were me, I would have never given my permission for those two to get married two years ago.”

“Two years ago she wasn’t a minor anymore, Mel,” Gene gently reminded her. “Legally, she could make her own decisions,” the man pointed out.

Melba threw up her hands. “And look how great that turned out for her,” she huffed.

Gene thought of the newest boarder he’d just taken in—without his wife’s knowledge, certainly without her permission.

Time to lay some groundwork, he told himself.

“Story’s not over yet, Mel. There’s a second act coming. I just know it. Just remember,” he told her, making eye contact with the woman he had slept beside for five decades, “not everyone has an iron resolve like you.” Gene leaned over and kissed his wife’s temple.

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me into going soft, Gene Strickland,” Melba snapped—but with less verve.

It was obvious that even that small a kiss had her lighting up in response. They had a connection, she and Gene. The kind that poets used to celebrate in their works. And spats or not, the warranty on that connection hadn’t expired yet.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he told her with a straight face. “As a matter of fact, I’m appealing to the businesswoman in you.”

Melba looked at her husband, somewhat confused. Where was all this going? “What’s that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

“Well, you’re a savvy businesswoman, aren’t you, Mel?” he asked.

“I like to think so,” she said guardedly, watching her husband as if she expected him to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something equally as predictable, yet at bottom, magical. “Okay, out with it. Just where are you going with this?”

He built the blocks up slowly. “Being a good businesswoman means that you like to make money, true?”

“Yes, yes, we already know this,” she told her husband impatiently. Everyone knew she loved making money, loved the challenge of running the boarding house efficiently. Having half a dozen adults—or so—in one place presented a great many hurdles to clear. But so far she was managing to run the place very successfully. “Get to the point. Sometime before next Christmas would be nice.”

He approached the heart of this matter cautiously, determined to set up a strong foundation first. “A good businesswoman wouldn’t allow personal prejudices to get in the way of her making a good-size profit.”

Though Gene had argued against it, Levi had insisted on paying more than the usual going rate for the room. Most likely in an effort to appeal to the entrepreneur in Melba when she learned of his being there.

“A good-size profit,” she repeated. “What are you getting us into, Gene?” she wanted to know, eyeing her husband suspiciously. Usually, she could rely on him to ultimately come through at the end of the day, doing nothing to jeopardize their way of life or their income. But he was making her nervous now with his vague innuendos. Just exactly what did the man have up his sleeve?

“Making money in what way?” she asked her husband when he didn’t answer her question.

“By renting out the last available room in the boarding house for more than the usual rate,” he told her with just a shade too much innocence to satisfy Melba.

“What are you trying to say, Gene? Come on, spit it out,” she ordered. “Just who is it that you’re renting out this last room to?” she demanded. And then, just before her husband could give her an answer, a look of horrified indignation washed over the older woman’s features. “Oh no, you can’t mean to tell me—”

Her voice had gone up so high that it completely vanished at its peak.

Wanting to get this out and then, hopefully, put to rest, Gene supplied the name that Melba seemed incapable of uttering.

“Levi. Claire’s husband. Yes, I rented it out to him,” he told her with an air of finality that let her know that she was not allowed to toss the young man out on his ear under any circumstances.

Melba glared at him. “Have you gone and lost your mind, Gene?”

The heated accusation did not surprise him. “Not that I know of, no. Last I checked, it was still where it was supposed to be. Right between my ears—same as yours, Mel.”

“Then why aren’t you using it?” Melba wanted to know. Because the man was certainly acting as if he had lost his mind.

“I thought I was,” he told her simply. “Not to mention my heart,” he added pointedly.

“Claire came here to get away from that man,” Melba reminded her husband. “Or did you somehow forget that little fact?”

“No, I didn’t forget that,” he replied calmly. “And since when did you condone cowardice?” Gene wanted to know.

The accusation instantly stirred her up. “What are you talking about?” Melba demanded heatedly. “I am most certainly not condoning cowardice.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Then what would you call letting her run away from her situation instead of facing up to it and trying to resolve it?”

Melba’s scowl deepened, even though it didn’t seem physically possible for it to become any deeper than it already was. She debated giving her husband the silent treatment, but the words were burning on her tongue, and she knew she’d have no peace until this was resolved and she said what had been—and still was—on her mind.

“You and I both know that she married too young,” she said to Gene.

Gene gave her a knowing look. “As I recall, she was the same age as you were when we got married.” Apparently, that little fact had escaped his wife.

“Don’t compare us,” Melba retorted. “I was years older emotionally.”

He tended to agree with her—although there were times when he felt Melba was too young to make competent decisions even at this age. Not that he would ever dare to tell her that.

“Be that as it may,” Gene told her, “Levi’s a good man, Mel, and he loves her.” It was clear that he believed the couple should take another shot at recapturing the magic that had brought them together and had existed in the first months of their marriage.

“Love alone never solved anything,” Melba retorted.

Gene gave her a sly, knowing look. “Maybe not, but it sure gave us something to look forward to on those cold, long nights. Remember?”

Melba pressed her lips together and swatted her husband’s arm. She could feel her cheeks warming. “Behave yourself, Gene.”

Gene chuckled, amused. “You don’t really mean that and you know it,” he told her.

The impish, sexy look he gave her melted the years away and brought them both back to a time when the only aches they felt involved their hearts and striving to be together over her parents’ wishes otherwise.

Rising from his side of the desk, he circled around to where his wife was sitting. Hands bracketing her shoulders, he brought her up to her feet before him. Melba was a small woman. Her bombastic personality made him forget that at times. In reality, Gene all but dwarfed her when he stood beside his wife.

Height difference notwithstanding, Melba filled up his whole world and had from the moment he’d first met her.

“Give him a chance, Mel,” he requested. “Give them both a chance to work this out.”

Melba thought of how hurt Claire had been when she first came to them. How hurt she still seemed to be. “And if she doesn’t want to?” she challenged.

“I have a feeling that she does,” Gene told her confidently. He saw the skeptical look come over her face and said, “They have a daughter and four years invested in one another, two of them as a married couple. They’ve simply run into some turbulence just like a lot of other couples, but abandoning ship isn’t the answer. If they do, if they don’t try to make this work, they’ll never forgive each other—or themselves.”

Melba frowned, looking at her husband as if for the first time. “Since when did you get to be such a hopeless romantic?” she wanted to know.

That was an easy one to answer. “Since I married the most beautiful girl at the dance,” he told her.

Melba huffed and shook her head. Her husband’s answer both surprised her and pleased her, but she couldn’t let him see that. If she did, she felt that she’d lose the upper hand in their relationship.

“Fine, Levi can stay,” she informed him. “But he pays rent like everyone else,” she warned. This wasn’t a charity mission she was running here, she thought.

Levi had been one step ahead of Melba, Gene now thought. Insisting on paying more than the usual rate had been very smart of him. “I told you, that was already part of the deal.”

Melba looked far from pleased. The scowl on her face not only remained, it deepened, too. “One wrong move and he’s out of here.”

“Understood.” Gene paused, allowing her to savor her moment before he decided to bedevil her a little and asked, “Define wrong move.”

She was at a disadvantage and not thinking as clearly as she should, Melba realized. Her mind was already on other matters that concerned the boarding house.

She chose the vague way out.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” she snapped. “Now I have to see if Gina has gotten dinner started,” she told him, referring to the boarding-house cook. To that end, Melba shrugged off her husband’s large, capable hands from about her shoulders. “One wrong move,” she repeated warningly just before she left the room.

“Hard to believe that woman once had what I took to be a soft heart underneath all that,” Gene said out loud to the other occupant of the area once his wife had left the room.

Turning around he looked at the young man he knew had been standing in the shadows of the hallway until the matter of his staying at the boarding house had been resolved. He was a little bit afraid of Melba—as were they all.

“But she does,” Gene affirmed.

Levi looked off in the direction the woman had gone in. “She doesn’t like me very much, does she?”

It wasn’t a question so much as an observation on Levi’s part.

“She likes you fine, boy,” Gene assured him. “What she doesn’t like is the situation. She’s very protective of the people she loves, kind of like a lioness guarding her cubs. And there is no second-guessing her moves.” He looked pointedly at his granddaughter’s husband. “Consider yourself warned.”

Levi nodded. “Yes, sir. And I appreciate you taking my side in this,” he said with genuine gratitude and feeling.

“Not taking sides,” Gene corrected the younger man. “Just facilitating things so that they can move ahead if that’s what’s in the cards. I think that little girl loves you,” Gene told the young man who had come to him with his hat in his hand as well as his heart on his sleeve. “The problem is that she just got really overwhelmed by everything.

“People figure that getting married and having babies is no big deal—but it is. It’s a huge deal, and there’s a lot of adjusting to be done by everybody. You impress me as a sensible, hardworking young man, and I can tell that you love Claire—just like I can tell that she loves you. But she expected that life would go on being one great big party, and that’s just not so. Marriage takes work and sacrifice. That’s the part people forget about. If you find someone you love, there always comes a time when you have to fight for them. And that’s a good thing in the long run because nothing that’s precious gets that way if it’s too easy.”

Levi nodded. “I’m willing to fight for Claire until my dying breath.”

“Nobody’s talking about dying, boy,” Gene told him, clapping one hand against Levi’s broad shoulders. “Now come with me. I’ve got some things in the basement I need moved around and brought up to the kitchen. I could use a hand with them.”

“Absolutely,” Levi responded eagerly, wanting nothing more than to try to pay the man back in some small way for his kindness in allowing him this chance to win back the only woman he had ever loved.

* * *

Not a day went by when Claire didn’t regret all the hot words that just seemed to fly out of her mouth on their own accord that fateful morning after the wedding reception. Most of all, she regretted throwing Levi out—and throwing her wedding ring at him. But she had been so angry and so hurt that he had preferred a stupid card game to being with her, she’d lost all reason. She’d been so furious, she was almost blinded by it.

At first she’d been so angry, she felt justified in leaving his phone calls unanswered.

But then he’d stopped calling.

Which meant to her that he had stopped caring. Because if Levi cared, he would have upped the number of his calls, not stopped them so abruptly. If he cared about her, truly cared, he would have come looking for her and wouldn’t have stopped—not to eat or drink or sleep—until he found her. And then he would have gone on to move heaven and earth to win her back.

Since none of that, heretofore, had happened, nor did it appear to be happening, it just told her that she was right.

Levi didn’t care anymore.

Well, if he didn’t care anymore, then she didn’t, either.

Except that she did.

She cared so much, she literally hurt inside. Which just served to make her feel as if she was a fool. Only a fool pined for someone who wasn’t worth it, she argued over and over again.

What she needed to do, she told herself at least once a day, was to forget all about Levi and just move on, the way normal people did.

But how could she forget about him when every time she looked down into her daughter’s face, she saw traces of Levi?

How could she move on when every morning began with thoughts of Levi? And every night ended that way, as well?

How could she forget about Levi when, in her head, she kept hearing his voice? Seeing his face? Everywhere she turned, she could swear he’d been there, or even was there.

She felt haunted, and with each day it was just getting worse, not better.

“Okay, today is the first day of the rest of your life, and you are going to stop this,” Claire ordered her reflection in the mirror over the bureau. “You are going to take your adorable baby and march right out that door and into the rest of your life. A life without boundaries and without Levi.”

Easier said than done, a little voice said in her head.

Still, she couldn’t just live her life standing here in this room, staring at her reflection, too afraid to venture out.

“The hell I am,” she declared out loud with enthusiasm.

So resolved, she took her baby daughter into her arms, rested Bekka on her hip and walked out of her room and into the rest of her life, or so she wanted to believe.

Unfortunately, as she all but marched into the hallway, she also walked straight into the person she was trying most to avoid.

She walked straight into Levi.

Chapter Three

Caught completely off guard, Claire shrieked.

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt her heart—an organ she had become painfully aware of in the past month—slam against her rib cage.

Stunned, she blinked, fully expecting Levi to fade away, a mere wistful product of her overactive imagination.

He didn’t fade away. Levi remained exactly where he was, standing in front of her, holding on to her shoulders to keep her from falling.

He’d been hoping to run into her, but not quite like this and definitely not so literally.